A Late-Night Cheese Episode In A Restaurant, With Some Comic Deafness And A Passing Reference To Footwear

The waiters stood by in the empty salon,

Waiters indeed, for it wasn't quite empty…

There was cheese on their plates, and the long night grew longer,

His passion was strong, but the Stilton was stronger.

“More, my dear… ?”  “Wine? I’ve already had plenty.”

“Try this Clond roux Rouy – it comes from Dijon.”

His ardour was hot as a Colby Jack Longhorn

(That’s a cheese from Montana with blazing black peppers).

Her lusty Pálpusztai lay untouched on the platter.

That word ‘Longhorn’ tickled him – he gave vent to the matter:

“Fermented from lactate of one year-old heifers… ”

And she said, “I believe it could have been Pangbourne.”

He roared to the waiters, “Come bring me Scamorza!

With olives and chutney and fine ratatouille!”

The yawning old servants lurched to attention

(One was a corporal, retired on half-pension,

Another had gone for a well-needed pee.)

“But why - ?” (Of Destino he felt the full Forza!)

“ – do you want gumboots at this hour?” she wondered.

“I didn’t say gumboots! I asked for some chutney,

To go with a cheese of sterling nobility!

I hear it is made in the Alps of north Italy.”

“Did you just announce that you wanted to fuck me?”

She asked. “Did you,” he roared, “just say you don’t 
          like Olomoucké syrečky?”

Sir Robert Walpole Decides To Stay At Home

“That day, Charles, I turned my back on society.”

I knew of and respected the general’s decision.
“I disliked its frivolity, its general lack of sobriety

And its utter lack of military precision.”

The Indian clock under its dusty bell-jar chimed four

And a man in a pugaree came in quietly with a tray of tea

And stale scones. “We may be needing more,”

Said the general, pouring a cup for me.

The general favoured Darjeeling

With – “To put a shine on its boots” – a dash of rooibos.

I developed a tolerance for this brew, but couldn’t help feeling

The Darjeeling’s boots would have been better without this                     unpalatable gloss.

The general’s scones were like little crusty slippers

And he used a rancid ghee instead of butter.

He’d dunk them in his tea – “I call this ‘dippers’, ”

He would say with a grin, or rather mutter.

“I learned to do this in Bahawulpur, when I was a subaltern

“In the King’s Own Royal Unmounted Hussars.

“Pah!” His exclamation was like a bubble torn

Untimely from a bubble-pipe. “The local bazaars

“Were full of things like this—an array of teas

“On every stall. Refreshin’ after too much fizzy gin,

“I may say. But those markets were overrun with fleas

“And the stallholders had no bally discipline.”

When he came home, it was to an England he no longer                          recognised.

People had forgotten how to warm the pot

And some had taken to using tea-bags. Pyjamas were sanforised.

The general took one look and said, “I think not.”

Another Old Compleynt

“Too much information,”

She said and ended the conversation. 

He heard a click

But continued to detail his symptoms:

“Things like this happen to aging bottoms.

It’s not really a question of being sick

So much as anno domini, if you will…”

– He got no reply – “… but I’m not really ill.”

“I’m afraid I’m not here

To take your call,” she said. “When you hear

The beep, leave your name

And number… ” “Are you there, Rosalind?”

He asked. “I’m still passing a lot of wind,

But my colon’s not to blame –

That’s the good news! But it’s not all

As good as that. Give me a call.”

She stared at her phone.

She was not good at living alone

But living with him would be worse.

It would, she thought, be like

Sharing her life with an old dog who could talk.

Oh, she was fond of him of course!

But he was old enough to be her dad,

And in the end, she knew, he’d drive her mad.

She made herself a cup of tea

And sat down to watch the news on TV.

Berlin Zoo’s polar bear Knut was one year old.

That’s the good news! But it’s not all

As good as that. Give me a call.”

Seize the initiative, try to be bold

For once, Rosalind! Don’t give way to the blues!

“Jack? Oh good, you’re there! So… give me the bad news.” 

Caspian Sea Shanty (For Three Voices)

O the Caspian Sea

Has been mighty good to me.

I said the Caspian Sea

Has been mighty good to me.

You know, the Caspian Sea

Has been mighty good to me,

Yes, siree,

Let’s hear it for the Caspian Sea.

May I enter a plea

On behalf of that sea –

As do Murray, Mike and Meredith,

Letitia, Luke and Lee.

We all love to go there

With our sandwiches of brie.

Where do we like to go to?

Why, the Caspian Sea!

I’ll admit my heart’s a-racin’

When I’m by that Caspian Basin

With my friend, Yehudi Kogsov –

We can’t wait to get out togs off

And go dipping skinnily

In that salty Caspian Sea.

And we all like to fish

In the Caspian Dish:

Sturgeon, roach and bream –

I tell you, fishing there’s a scream!

There’s no place we’d rather be

Than beside the Caspian Sea!

God, I feel bad about the city!

On the condom-strewn streets in the sweltering heat, an old horse and a donkey

Look confused. 

The scaffolding on the terraces opposite the brothel are looking a bit wonky

And the tramps are sick of being abused

By natty Italian men in grey suits on their Vespas, singing snatches

From Aida and picking their noses.

The ugly egg of frustration hatches

In this squalor so far from peace and roses.

    In the city there is only pain;

    This is urban – not, my dear, urbane.

A Sentimental Journey

Bournemouth you say?  Wasn’t I there just thirty years ago?
I remember it like yesterday—or is my memory playing the fool?

I went there by train.  All the way, I sat beside a stranger who said          nothing

Until we got off: “I’ve got my car here. I’m going in the direction of         Poole

If that’s any help to you.” I was, I confess, a little stand-offish with         the fellow.

His conversation might have been a blessing on my long, sad                    journey,

But now his offer, though sincerely meant, was an impertinence.

I thanked him and said no. He gave me his card. His name was                Raymond Gurney.

The funny thing is, the other day I was going through some things

And I found that card in an old mackintosh that I wasn’t wearing at      the time,

So God alone knows how it got there.  Imagine a thing like that

Turning up again after thirty years. I felt a curious sense of shame.

Waving Goodbye To The Cosmos

“The telescope tells us so little,”
He said, applying a gobbet of unhealthily viscous spittle

To a grubby rag and wiping it vigorously into the eyepiece,

“But every jot and tittle

“Contributes something, however nugatory, to my peace

“Of mind. Now, hand me my veal-and-ham pie please.”

Remember, this was fifty years ago and more.

That day, I walked out through the observatory door

A sadder and a more stupid man

Than I had ever been before.

The great astronomer seemed determined to scupper my plan

And paid less attention to me than to his flan.

That day I burned my research papers and resolved

To buy a farm. With my hopes dashed and dissolved

What greater comfort could I find

Than to be alone with a few sheep? My mind revolved

No more with the cosmos. I felt my terrors unwind

As I walked among lambs. I left the stars behind.

And yet, as I walk under the clear skies of Devon,

I feel something far more deeply interfused begin to leaven

My contentment. The lambs are white

On the dark tor, like snowflakes on the back of a sleeping raven,

Or intimations of a better heaven in the long night

That once robbed me, thanks to the great astronomer, of all my             delight.

Military Air

In the mist of the slaughter, it’s justice that suffers;

In the bright face of Justice we waggled vague fingers.

Judgments were issued by hopeless old buffers

Who looked in their wigs like old cabaret singers

(They’re all long dead now, but the melody lingers).

I stood up in court and spilled the beans blithely.

The men had abandoned their horses, oh blimey!
I mentioned by name Corporals Stutely and Hytheleigh,

(Hytheleigh was British—the slang term is “Limey”)

And I let the court know that young Stutely was slimy.

 “You’ll look back on these days as on splendour and magic,”

Said General Hooter (his message in Morse);

That day he was slaughtered—his death was not tragic

(Time healeth no ills and can’t act without force);

He trod on a land-mine, and so did his horse.

The Politics Of Arse-Envy

In this fog of fiscal drag

As tax and growth divorce, I see

The state is making a tidy sum

Out of our poverty and I feel in my bum

A boiling anger, uncontrolled,

As demand, though stable,

Fails to supply food on the table

Except in the house of Lord and Lady

Hench.

When anger turns to power

This is the hour, indeed the very second,

Of revolution.

There is no hate when there is love

Returned; but love looks after hate

When neither love nor hate can find

Anchor in the heart or mind.

My own view, speaking as a liberal, is that change

Needs wheels, otherwise society simply

Goes off the rails and gardeners become lairds,

The poor become rich, Lady Hench

Becomes the footman’s bitch and the order of things

Is disturbed.

The people’s righteous anger must be curbed.

Here is my recipe.  Val Doonican on a stool,

Surveying the tumult and making it pacific,

Like stout Cortez and his eagles and his friend, Darien .

No deaths will be recorded on this day,

All children will be free to laugh and play,

All dumb, downtrodden diggers will have their say

And fiscal drag will take a hint,

After its sadistic stint,

And pack its bags and go away.

And now the anger in my bum

Boils over, the ring splutters, goes out

And gas spreads like clotted cream

Till all is dead and all

Is serene.

The Enjoyment Of Kicking A Man When He’s Down

Do you know Frank Haggard?  I do!

And, by Gad, I’ll warrant he knows me!  You

May see him hobbling in anguish along the Strand,

Holding his testicles with his only good hand.

You may see him wincing in Villiers Street

As he gingerly shuffles on his trembling feet.

I shouldn’t be surprised if you spot him retching on the                           Embankment

With Thames ague – at least I think that’s what Hank meant

By mal-de-rivière

But, to be honest, I don’t really care.

I met Haggard in Les Tulipes du Nord,

A very swanky eaterie that shuts its doors firmly against the                 poor –

Expect to pay at least a hundred and fifty euros for a pan-fried           dover sole

And a king’s ransom – I assure ye – for a rum-soaked Swiss roll.

I was sitting at the next table, he was with a stunningly beautiful         blonde

Of whom I became suddenly and insanely fond.

I walked over to their table, grinned and emptied the plate

Of aubergine stuffed with vieux ceps all over his pate

And challenged him to stand up and defend her virtue:

“Do it,” I rasped masterfully, “or else I’ll be forced to hurt you.”

I was pleased to note the look of grudging admiration in her eye

- Ladies love a man who’s masterful and spry.

Haggard was desperately trying to disentangle the aubergine               from his hair

When I picked up a chair

And brought it down with – I don’t mind saying – astonishing              force

On his head.  Of course,

He fell to the floor – chaps like that always do –

And I was encouraged by the girl, who mouthed: “I love you”

As I stamped on his face and trod on his groin

While she continued to tuck into her loin

Of pork, served with red cabbage and mint:

I could see I was dealing with a most uncommonly debonair bint.

He groaned as I kicked him; I kicked him some more

And he writhed in agony, clawing the floor,

I waited until he started to rise

And kicked him again, right between the thighs.

I jumped on his chest as soon as he was supine

And drove my boot into his face as she poured herself another            glass of wine

Which she drank a little saucily, letting some of it drip

On to her cleavage – as the whole restaurant heard the sickening         rip

Of teeth from gum.

The fellow was looking decidely glum.

By this time the girl had undone a few more buttons of her dress

And asked me to take her away from this mess

That was writhing and contorting under my boot

And I happily escorted her towards the door, brushing the                     aubergine from my suit.

We slipped into a taxi, I told the chap to drive to my hotel and get       cracking,

And when we arrived at Le Splendide I dropped her off and sent       her packing.

She never became Mrs Frank Haggard,

Thanks to the timely intervention of a resourceful blackguard.

Not Many Surprises Down The Goldhawk Road These Days

After reading extracts from Iris Whelstone’s account of my life

(the Authorised Biography, written I see with my “full                             cooperation”)

in this morning’s Sunday Telegraph Review,

I dare not even begin to imagine what my autobiography will be          like.

Ms Whelstone I read has “cast a sympathetic eye on a life more           remarkable

for” blah blah blah “than for” blah blah blah blah.

You get the gist, and it’s probably true

– and even if it’s not true, who am I to argue?

I didn’t have the heart to read it word for word

or the stomach to digest it whole. In the end

(and by the end I was just looking for names I recognised)

I went back to bed with a bottle of brandy and watched telly.

The phone rang twice before I passed out. 

I can’t say I’m going to put the record straight.

The record is there for everyone to see

and hear. Replay it as ye will, nothing changes the enduring                truth

that someone stubbed a fag out in the middle of track two

in nineteen seventy-six.

I suppose I at least will be able put a name and a face

to that scar, if anyone is still interested after Ms Whelstone’s

comprehensive knife-job – I still can’t remember

giving her the run of my cutlery, but if she says I did

I suppose I must have done. I’ll be more careful.

These days I can barely trust myself with a fucking spoon. 

Post-modern Rider

I want to make a statement,

I’ll make it in due course.

In the interests of noise abatement

This one’s about a horse.

It’s a plucky little statement,

It’s a plucky little nag,

But sadly its being late meant

There was a trifling snag.

The horse has gone and legged it

And the pudding turned out flat.

(Didn’t I mention I’d over-egged it?

I should have mentioned that!)

I miss my horse quite sadly,

His love, his wit, his verve:

I rode the nag quite badly,

It’s just what I deserve.

Nor Ever Chased Except You Ravish Mee With Images Of Sir Robert Walpole

There is a sense in which there is a sense 
Of something far more cheaply over-used

Than I have time to tell you about.

May I be excused?

This dinner party’s not going anywhere – is it? – and, frankly,

The choice of deserts does not appeal

To one who has eaten his own weight in truffles

Before the meal.

Can it be coincidence that, moments after I left,

Isabella Threapleton-Wrunge was shot in the billiards room?

“We have reason to believe the murderer (or murderers)

“Came in by the conservatory,” declared Inspector Groom.

“How so?” I would have asked, wanting the “reason”

To be de-constructed, like Columbo

Does after his “Jush one more t’ing, shur”,

Rather than be palmed off with official mumbo-jumbo.

It was Clive, I think, who said that Robert Morley was “simply               born”

To play Walpole in the Hollywood epic that Cecil B. DeMille

Planned to make in nineteen-fifty-three

But was prevented from so doing after falling seriously ill

In Oregon.  Walpole’s portrait

Got it in the neck; a single bullet passed cleanly through

Isabella’s chest and embedded itself

In the canvas, like a chimney-sweep fired fast up into a flue,

The sweep being slightly larger than the chimney

And therefore lodged.

We can only assume that Sir Robert might have been more                     seriously harmed

Had Isabella dodged

But, as things stand, there is a reasonable chance that much of the        work

Can be restored, particularly its intricate combination of shades           and lines

Which mark it out unmistakably as a work by

That celebrated artist, John Theodore Heins.

But those who value human life above art

(The myopic millions for whom materialism means

Marriage to mediocrity) are sad she didn’t dodge;

For, if she had, she could have taken up her place at Queens

That Autumn.  “Oxford is the poorer for her passing,”

Said Reggie, her fiancé, which immediately alerted Plod:

“Surely,” Groom mused, “he should be the poorer

“If he really loved her.”  Poirot was forced to nod.

“Indeed, mon ami – et milles tonnerres!  You have – how you                 say? –

“Let the cat out of the suitcase and spilled the peas.”

Groom smiled grimly.  “Only doing my job, Monsoor Porrit.

“Shall I arrest Reginald Wivenhoe Leas?”

“I’d rather you didn’t actuelleh, old fruit,” said Reggie, rather                 sheepishly.

“You see, the thing is, I’m down to be playin’ a spot of cricket in             Surrey

“With the Gentlemen, don’t ye know.  And if this leaks out,

“I don’t suppose any chap in the Home Counties will lend me a             tenner in a hurry.

Groom eyed him wryly.  Compassion fought against justice.

It was a tough battle.  But in the end – and it’s a fact to which                   observers attest –

Plod was in tears as he cuddled the warped Walpole portrait –

And, in consequence, Leas was arrested on the minor charge of             criminally damaging the great man’s vest.

Love On A Bicycle

I’ll take the coast road from Seaford as far as Eastbourne.

From Pevensey it is not far to Bexhill.

Even if men come with guns and torches,
My love for you is something I could ever deny.
Even when it rains and nobody will give me shelter,

My fidelity is something on which you may rely.

When Donald and Toshiko had swallows nesting in the eaves,

Toshiko climbed a ladder to look.
Donald held the ladder for her and as she went up,

He admired the way her splendid buttocks shook.

The neglected road-surface plays havoc with my tyres.
It will soon be dark and my teeth are aching with lust.
Fortunately I have a stout sleeping bag with me.
It will protect me from the wind, if not the dust.

I’ll take the coast road from Seaford as far as Eastbourne.
From Pevensey it is not far to Bexhill.

I Used To Live In Narbonne, You Know

I used to live in old Narbonne, where the sailors brood
About lost ships, cracked lips, sprained hips and turbulent trips

To far-flung, fatuous, foreign fields.  Who’d

Begrudge them their cantankerous moans?  Here’s one who                 grips

My arm as if to say, “Monsieur?”  In his eyes

I see a troubled land in which great Chaos lies

And I am afraid.  Yes – afraid!

I wish I could say I made

My excuses and left, like that News Of The World reporter,

But there was something about him, a sort of rheumy water

Welling in his retina,

Like a poisoned puddle set in a

Vitreous void.

A friend from the West Country warned me: “Oi’d

“Be careful, Sam, he’s mad as an ’orse!”

But the old salt held on to me, with maritime force.

“Monsieur?” he croaked.  “Yes?” I said shortly.

In the past I’d have sent fellows of his sort lee-

Wards, to swim or sink on the ocean spray;

But I decided to hear what he wanted to say.

“Êtes-vous de Manhattan?” he ventured at last.

“Yes,” I replied, suddenly aghast

With a fear that rippled through my entire body

(Do you remember that time in the Lamb & Flag, Roddy?)

Wondering how the devil he knew, for I’d affected a style

Designed to baffle, bemuse and beguile

Those trying to guess my city of origin:

My mouth oped so wide you could have put a pint of porridge              in!

“Vous connaissez TriBeCa, par aucune chance?”

Well I did, actually – it’s where I used to dance

For a couple of dollars and a plate of soup

With The Bandana Boys, a colorful troupe

Of crackheads and drunkards and ruffians and rogues,

All togged up in pantaloons and brogues –

But that was before I got far too fat –

Though I wasn’t going to tell this old sailor that!

“Oui,” I confessed.  And we shared a piratical grin,

Like brothers in arms or soldiers in sin.

     It turned out he’d lived there when he was young and spry

     But he now lives in Narbonne – and so do I.